Game Review: Avatar of the Dead

Hey all, between packing and moving house I've not had much time to review any books, films or games this last week so this is going to be a short one just to tie you over.

I have been playing Avatar of the Dead...or rather I played it twice and no more because it has no replay value. It is an indie zombie survival game you can get on the Xbox 360.

When you begin you get dumped in a dark map by a van with its lights on with no explanation as to how and why you got there. Armed with only your fists you are told to find weapons - which you will use to fight off zombies. I found a shovel and nothing else after that. The zombies come out of the dark but you can usually hear them coming and half of them look like crash test dummies. Then you hit them...again...and again...until they're dead.

This game wouldn't be so bad if the zombies took less than nine or ten hits to kill - yet yif you're hit more than three you die and have to start over (even though you're hitting them with a shovel).

Also the graphics are awful. If you try the punch attack it looks like you are swinging a pair of mannequin arms around. The shovel probably doesn't do much damage because when you swing it - and that term is being generous - it twitches and that's it. The map is very limited and the reason why it is so dark is not for atmosphere - it's to hide how bad the graphics are.

Avatar of the Dead gets 1/10.

Finding the Vault: Borderlands Game Review

With the recent release of the new Borderlands game, The Pre-sequel, I’ve decided to have a shot at the original 2009 game. Not to be confused with the southern region of Scotland that shares a similar name (The Borders), the game drops you on a desert planet called Pandora. 

After selecting one of four characters, who all specialise in different weaponry, you then must begin your search for a mythical alien bunker called The Vault.

If you’re after a story driven game then you’re best looking elsewhere as that is pretty much the extent of it in Borderlands. You have to do certain missions and speak to certain people to move the story a long but they do not say much and there is definitely no complicated subplots going on in this desert. 

Borderlands is a first person shooter and if you’re into the genre this will be right up your street. I found it was very enjoyable to play with friends as a team shooter. However, while Borderlands has a wide range of missions for you to play besides the main story, they are all very samey. As a result the game can be very repetitive at times. 

But it has some nice cartoony graphics and the music is good, and so are the controls. This is a good one to play with friends rather than go it alone. 

Borderlands gets 7/10.

Bioshock Infinite Review

It’s time to review another video game (no groaning). Anyway, I am probably the last person in the entire world to review this game - since everyone else did it within five minutes of its release but not all of us can get advance copies of these things. 

So today we are taking a look at Bioshock Infinite, one of the most anticipated games of the last two years. If you are not familiar with the series, I will fill you in. It’s a first person shooter series. The previous two games were set in an underwater city where you had to fight your way through a population of genetically-enhanced townies. 

The genetic enhancements were a core part of the game play and have of course winged their way to Bioshock Infinite. These genetic enhancements give your character superpowers, including fire, water and an earthquake move called Bucking Bronco, amongst a host of others. 

But that is where the similarities between Infinite and its predecessors end. The new game is set in the cloud city of Columbia. Who play Booker Dewitt, a grizzled former Pinkerton agent sent to rescue a girl - Elizabeth, in exchange for wiping away all his gambling debt. If you have played the previous games, you will not be wrong expecting a big twist at the end. 

Moving on to game play, the controls in Infinite handle like a dream. There is no auto-lock on enemies when shooting but the manual controls are very smooth and fluid so lining up shots when you are being hammered in a war zone from all angles is not a fiddle. 

Also jumping has been moved to the A button. Again, if you have played the second game in the series, you will remember that jump was signed to Y on the Xbox controller. I know this is a petit gripe but most people instinctively press A when trying to jump in a game thanks to being raised on Super Mario games. So the re-assigning of jump to the correct and expected button is something that wins a thumbs up from me. 

Graphically speaking Infinite is dazzling. The detail and scenery is breathtaking and is something the developers are keen to show off at certain points in the game. Although the same cannot be said about the characters, I felt their heads looked a bit like cardboard boxes but again, this is merely a petit gripe.

I was also not that taken by the enemies. For a large part of the game early on you are just shooting at angry policemen, more angry policemen and then yet more angry policemen in slightly different uniforms. More variety turn-up later on but I missed the Big Daddies and variety of Splicers from the previous games. 

From a story standpoint Infinite is well-paced and good. Like I said earlier, the ending does come as a surprise but overall I was disappointed with it (but I will not spoil it here).

Bioshock Infinite gets 9/10